In Our Darkest Hour
by Ace of Fours
Summary: Wheatley is an unfortunate Aperture Science engineer who, in a stroke of truly terrible luck, finds himself in a practically post-apocalyptic Aperture with a mute test subject who's just as unlucky as he is. human!Wheatley.
1. Promotion

**A/N: **Hey guys, MoHo here! Had a great idea yesterday morning (was this supposed to be out _last_ night? Whoops, hehe), and this is how it played out: another fanfic! I know, I know, those of you who follow 'Wheatley's Second Chance' probably want to beat me senseless, but I promise I'll rotate which story I'm working on. I promise. WSC won't fall by the wayside. That being said, enjoy the first chapter of 'In Our Darkest Hour,' a human!Wheatley fanfic. Also: It's an AU, so don't hit me if there are a few inconsistencies.

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><p>It was clear to Wheatley that he was fighting a losing battle as he tried not to squirm in the cold, uncomfortable chair. An exasperated sigh sounded from beside him, and his blue eyes guiltily met those of the nurse who was mending his hand.<p>

"For the last time, hold still." she said irritatedly. "Unless you want a bunch of crooked stitches in your hand." the nurse scolded before returning her focus to the deep wound on his hand. Wheatley looked away again, glasses sliding down his nose. He started to reach up to fix them, when the nurse froze him with a stern glare, like a deer in the headlights. He let his hand drop.

"It's not my fault. This chair is bloody uncomfortable." he replied defensively. A sharp pain jolted up his arm. "Ow! And it's not like you're the most gentle nurse on the staff..." Wheatley added crossly.

"Don't mind him, ma'am. He's just in a mood because his precious project turned on him." a dark haired man commented from the doorway: Kirk, Wheatley's closest friend and a botanist. The nurse looked at Wheatley with eyebrows raised.

"Oh my. Were you working on the mantis men?" she asked solemnly. Wheatley blushed as Kirk snickered at her question.

"Ah, no no, Kirk's only having a lark." the British man corrected. "I'm an engineer, actually. The project he's talking about is a computer. It didn't _turn_ on me, per se, I, er, tripped over an extension cord and put my hand through the window..." he trailed off in embarrassment. Kirk wasn't bothering to hide his fits of laughter, but Wheatley wasn't mad. Not much set off the cheerful man.

Seven stitches later, the two men were walking to the Aperture Labs break room.

"So, your left hand, huh? Bad luck. I guess you'll have to make do with righty. Although," Kirk grinned up at Wheatley as he held the door open for a couple of secretaries filing out of the room, "you do enough damage with four working limbs, I'd hate to see you work with three." Wheatley, now seated at a table, shook his head, fidgeting with the bandages wound around his hand.

"No way. I'm getting these off. I need my hand." he said a little whimperingly, tugging at the dressings. "Blimey, that nurse must've been in the Navy or something. Lookit this knot!" he growled. Wheatley jumped as a hand grabbed his shoulder.

"Honestly, Wheatley, you don't want it to get any worse, do you?" a svelte voice questioned. He looked behind him and up to see Angie, one of the many interns working in his department. Wheatley smiled at her.

"Ahh, don't worry about me, Angie. You should see the other guy. Er, window." he grinned as Angie laughed before giving his shoulder a squeeze. Kirk resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Everyday the young intern shamelessly flirted with Wheatley, who wouldn't notice her advances if she gave him a lap dance.

"Be more careful, okay?" she said, giving him a wink and slipping out the door. Wheatley smiled obliviously and continued his (losing) battle with the bandages. Kirk shook his head, taking a sip of his coffee and leaning against the small counter before examining his friend.

Wheatley was as laughably clueless when it came to the social realm as he was clumsy. Sure, he was likeable, and friendly, but always seemed more at ease with his codes and programs than with any person. And romantically, he was a complete moron (not that Kirk would ever say it to his face...Wheatley was a little sensitive about insults to his intelligence...). It definitely wasn't that he was unattractive. Wheatley was tall, with a fairly handsome face and thick, messy (most likely because he rarely brushed it, not due to any effort on his part...) rusty brown hair. All the girls in the office fawned over his thick British accent and 'adorable' clumsy tendencies. His supervisors didn't seem to think his frequent accidents were so endearing, but he was a brilliant engineer, so that made up for it.

"Hey, Kirk, mate, do you have a knife?" Wheatley asked, looking up from his struggle.

"Yes, but I'm certainly not letting _you_ borrow it." Kirk replied with a grin. Wheatley frowned and went at the bandages with his teeth. "Hey! Do I need to get you one of those head cones, like a dog?" he asked. Wheatley looked up with blue eyes wide, unsure if he was kidding or not. Kirk grinned and, deciding to throw him a bone (har, har!), drew out his pocket knife, carefully slicing off the dressings. "There. Now, are you fit for work? Because I didn't just come down here to coddle your boo-boo." he said sarcastically. Wheatley grimaced at his stitches for a moment before replying.

"Do you see this? They literally just sewed the skin flaps together. That's disgusting." he remarked, glancing back up at Kirk. "Oh, yes. What else did you come here for?" Wheatley asked, a little delayed. Kirk rolled his eyes.

"Because, you've been reassigned." he said. Wheatley's eyes went wide and he promptly collapsed face-first on the table.

"Great. Is it because I broke the window? I specifically fell _toward_ the window so I wouldn't break the equipment! That has to be some kind of hate crime, right? Like, a crime against the clumsy? Oh, no...did they make me a custodian, is that it?" Wheatley asked in anguish, meeting Kirk's gaze. The other man was chuckling lightly. "What? What's funny?"

"Idiot. They put you on the A.I. Team." he said with a grin. Wheatley's jaw dropped open and he stared at Kirk for a moment, stunned into silence. A true achievement, when it came to Wheatley.

"You're joking, right?" he finally asked. Kirk shook his head, prompting a wild grin from Wheatley. The redhead jumped out of his chair, banging his knee in the process but too happy to recognize the pain, and happily embraced his shorter friend. "Ahhh, that's _brilliant! _I can't believe it! Do you even know how huge this project is?" he exclaimed. Kirk took Wheatley by the shoulders and pushed him off, smiling.

"Yeah, I know, but if you want to keep your new job, you better get down to the AI lab. Fast." he suggested. Aperture dropped their employees at the drop of a hat. Wheatley nodded before dashing off and out the door. Kirk waited a moment before Wheatley dashed back by again.

"It's this way." he sheepishly muttered as he passed the door. Kirk shook his head and laughed.

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><p>Wheatley checked the time.<em> Two a.m...no, wait.<em> His watch had stopped. The redhead let out a groan and let his head hit the desk.

"It's not easy work, is it?" chimed a voice behind him. Wheatley recognized the voice as Kirk's, and spun around in his chair. The physical change in Wheatley was startling: in the fifteen months he'd been working for the small AI department, he'd lost copious amounts of weight and gained a sickly pallor, as well as dark circles under his eyes, all symptoms of the long hours he worked.

What impressed Kirk, though, was that his cheery demeanor hadn't been tarnished in the least.

"Good evening, mate. Or, good morning." the British man said, smiling warmly. "Not really sure anymore..." he admitted, rubbing his eyes, the glare of the fluorescent lights only serving to make him more tired, somehow. Kirk held up a mug of coffee, which Wheatley regarded like a starving man regarded a hot meal. He graciously accepted the cup and took a long sip. The two friends sat in silence, Wheatley just enjoying the company and Kirk frowning over his friends less than stellar appearance. Unsurprisingly, Wheatley spoke up first, after finishing his coffee in what had to be record time. "So, ehh, this is my workspace. Not an office, not really. Just a workspace." he said. Kirk examined the small room. It was packed with computer screens, all filled with nonsense code. There were sticky notes plastered across every inch of the room that wasn't a computer monitor.

"You've been busy, haven't you Wheat?" he asked. Wheatley nodded.

"It's completely worth it, though. You have _no _idea the kind of stuff we've been working on!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"Like brain scanning?" Kirk interrupted. Wheatley looked down, suddenly very interested in the bottom of his mug.

"I-I'm actually not working on that one..." he said quietly. "The GLaDOS Project-" Wheatley began, trailing off without finishing the thought. There were some aspects of Artificial intelligence that he thought crossed the line. Inputting real personalities into computers...was at the very least a grey area.

"GLaDOS Project?" Kirk repeated. "They've _named _it?" Wheatley nodded, looking uncomfortable.

"Yeah. Have you gone to see...?" he responded. Kirk shook his head. "They've got quite an amazing rig for her, the robotics fellas..."

"Her?" Kirk repeated, startled.

"Well, considering that her mind is based off of that woman, Caroline's, they've been referring to it as a 'she.'" Wheatley explained. Kirk was clearly disturbed, it was written all over his face. "They can't get it working properly, though. Every time they switch GLaDOS on, it only takes like twelve picoseconds before it tries to kill everyone." he confessed. "I-I don't know, Kirk. What they're doing gives me chills..." he admitted. Kirk sighed.

"I understand that. But, uh, don't let the higher-ups catch you saying that. You'll be out the door...or worse." he said solemnly. Aperture was famous for not handling unruly employees with grace. Some were killed in barely disguised 'accidents', and the most unlucky ones ended up as test subjects.

"Yeah, well, that could very well happen. I'm not known for being stoic or anything." Wheatley replied with a grin. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a chatty cathy." he joked. Kirk shook his head, chuckling. He truly was worried for Wheatley's safety, though. For Wheatley, that was the point where everything began to get...fuzzy...

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><p>Wheatley sat straight up in bed, a decision which he immediately regretted due to the several audible cracks that came from the general vicinity of his spine. He groaned loudly as he wracked his throbbing head for the answer as to how he ended up in a shoddy looking hotel room? Reflexively he groped for his glasses, knocking over a lamp in the process.<p>

"You have been in stasis for-" a voice blared, and Wheatley yelped loudly in reaction, having thought he triggered some kind of lamp-break alarm, covering up the first half of the number. The second half was enough of a shock to Wheatley, just a series of repeated 'nine's. He put on his glasses and swiped a hand over his chin, feeling a thick scruff on his face as he tried to grasp on _some _kind of explanation as to how he got here. Working for Aperture meant that nothing really ever came as a surprise (waking up with a bionic appendage wasn't uncommon), but being in stasis for- Wheatley attempted some quick calculations, then promptly gave up on said calculations as they made his brain hurt- a very long time was still pretty shocking.

Wheatley crossed the room to look out the window-or at least, he tried. Before he could reach the window, however, a piece of the floor gave way under his foot, almost sending him plunging through the floor. After letting out a scream and withdrawing to the bed once more, he dared to poke his head in the hole. And what he saw was quite unsettling. The stasis chambers sprawling around him were in various states of disrepair, and large vines were growing up some of the walls.

"Maybe I have been in stasis for as long as it said..." he murmured, his voice raspy from disuse. Wheatley cleared his throat. The evidence was adding up. But if that was true...that meant that everyone who wasn't in stasis was he'd ever known. Wheatley knew he should have been more devastated by that, but somehow the shock of loss was dulled by the fact that they had probably been dead for _years._ He picked himself up and dusted off, ever-so-carefully picking his way across the room to the door, testing each step before putting his weight down. By some miracle he made it out the door, into a strange hallway that looked like it connected him to the other pods in this row.

"Hello?" Wheatley called tentatively. "Anyone...around? Helloooo?" he shivered as his voice echoed back to him. Nervously he searched for some clue as to what was going. After a few minutes of thorough searching he stumbled upon a computer console. He grinned. Easy. Wheatley typed as rapidly as he could, disappointed to find the joints of his fingers stiff and uncooperative, which slowed him quite a bit. Eventually he accessed the Stasis Chamber Management Screen. According to the report, the bot in charge of the test subjects in stasis had been unexpectedly decommissioned. Further investigation revealed that most of the subjects were now dead. Wheatley felt a chill pass through him. He had narrowly escaped that fate.

"Now...did anyone else make it out alive?" he questioned. He knew he would go mad if he were the only person left in the facility...as far as he knew, the only person left in the world. Wheatley tapped madly at the keyboard. A few names popped up, but one in particular caught his eye. 'Chell [REDACTED]' the file said. _Odd. Why would her last name be redacted? _He wondered. He selected her file, and, what luck! Her chamber was just down the hall. Wheatley set the pod to wake her and hurried down to find the right door. It only took him a whole two minutes to figure out he had gone the wrong way and hastily changed directions...

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><p><strong>AN: **So there it is! I promise, Wheatley's memories will fill themselves in as the story progresses. Aaaanywho, let me know what you think!


	2. Partnership

**A/N: **Guys, guys, guys, guys. Guys. I'm back. And I feel terrible for leaving you all hanging like that. Please forgive me? Look, I wrote you a chapter! As a make-up gift! And I baked you a cake! -offers a cake- Do you love me again?

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><p>Wheatley stood outside the door, wringing his hands nervously, checking the number for the hundredth time. Heaven forbid he walk in on the wrong person! Oh, right...almost all of them were dead, so that wasn't likely. Finally he took a deep breath and, in what felt like bullet time to Wheatley, reached for the knob, and slowly...<p>

Locked. That was unexpected. Wheatley was at a loss. What should he do? For good measure he rattled the knob, to no avail. That didn't work. Should he break it down? Wheatley examined his nearly emaciated arms, skinny to begin with but even worse after his time in stasis. Brute force was out. Pick the lock? _Need to learn how exactly lockpicking works, first..._he thought. No time for that, he'd already wasted—he tried to do the calculations again but quickly gave up—a _lot_ of years in stasis. Give up and go away? _Alright, that's the back-up plan. Shelving that for later._

Or he could just knock. Knock on the door. And he did so. It was oddly comforting, to have such a normal, commonplace gesture in the crazy, abandoned world in which he now resided. What was distinctly _not _comforting was the fact there was no answer. Wheatley pushed his glasses up and knocked again, a little louder.

"Hello? Is there anyone in there?" he finally called out. "Hello? Could you let me in, please?" awkwardly he paused, "Th-the door appears to be locked. And it's rather urgent that you open the door, please." Wheatley pressed his ear to the door, listening hard for any sign of movement. But no, he couldn't catch a single sound. "You aren't dead in there, are you? That would be fairly disappointing if you were!" he called. After a few moments he straightened back up and took a step back, ready to go back and try another name, when the door swung open and out burst a streak of orange. Wheatley let out an 'oof' as he was tackled to the ground. His head hit the metal grating of the catwalk hard, sending stars swirling across his vision. He shook off the dizziness and observed, through his slightly askew glasses, a pair of very hard, steely-blue eyes. Wheatley did _not _enjoy being on the receiving end of that glare. He shrank back (as much as he could with his back pressed to the floor) and he fearfully eyed his attacker. She was smallish, almost in a sickly way, and a little on the pale side, which could likely be attributed to her time in stasis. However none of that detracted from how bloody intimidating she was. Something to do with the wild look in her eye. And the fact that she was kneeling on his chest with a fistful of his shirtfront in each hand.

"Uh, hello." he said weakly, giving a small wave of his hand. The gray eyes went rather round as their owner seemed to actually see him for the first time, through the haze of adrenaline. He felt her grip slacken and she slid off of him, sitting on the floor next to him. Slowly he sat up, adjusting his glasses, and scooted a back a bit. "I'm sorry I startled you." he apologized. She continued to stare at him. Wheatley stood slowly, lest he initiate another assault. She stood with him, gaze unwavering. It was unnerving, and Wheatley was finding it rather hard to remember why he'd come and knocked on her door in the first place. "Oh! Right, you are...you're Chell, right? Have I got the wrong room?" he asked. Suddenly she made another move toward him. "Ah! Don't hit me again!" he yelped, throwing his arms up to protect his face. Chell's shoulders rose and fell in a noiseless laugh as she reached out. There was a not suspicious, cold look in her steely blue eyes, as there had been earlier, just a glimmer of curiosity and something like...fascination? Wheatley lowered his guard, bewildered as Chell simply touched his arm, seemingly dumbfounded by him.

"Er, yes, that _is_ my arm. I...um, is there a problem?" he asked in utter confusion as she circled him briefly. Chell met his eyes and smiled, shaking her head. It was a small smile, barely reaching her eyes, but for some reason it made Wheatley smile as well, forgetting completely about her violent reaction.

A klaxon alarm suddenly blared, making the two jump in unison. As the alarm shook him out of his stupor, Wheatley realized he had forgotten (again) why he was here. "Right! Escaping." he said aloud. Chell cocked her head curiously. For the first time Wheatley noticed that she hadn't spoken a single word to him. "Are you all right? I mean...just...you're very quiet." he noted. She ducked her head, looking a bit ashamed, biting her lower lip slightly. It dawned on Wheatley that it was entirely possible that years in stasis had rendered her without a voice. After all, his own voice had been rusty and weak when he first awoke, and was still a little rougher than usual. "Can you not...speak?" he clarified. She nodded. "Ah. I see." Wheatley said, lowering his gaze for a moment and feeling like a total prick for making her uncomfortable. "Well, I know your name is Chell, and you are alive and at least _partially_ sane, and that's really all I need, to be honest." he said warmly, lightheartedly, sticking his hand out to make up for his insensitivity. Chell eyed it for a moment before tentatively stretching her petite hand out to meet his in a handshake. "I'm Wheatley, by the way." As if on cue the alarm barked out again and Wheatley drew back.

"Okay, time to go before this place goes up in flames." he said, slipping into the relaxation chamber, but not before catching Chell's alarmed expression. "Well, the only real explanation for the relaxation chambers to stop working is a complete reactor meltdown." he explained, climbing up onto Chell's bed. He could feel her watching as he pushed against the ceiling, right at the end of a metal railing. "So we have to get out of here before..." he brought one hand away from the ceiling tile he was pushing and made an 'explosion' hand gesture, accompanied by a 'boom' sound, before quickly resuming his work. "Luckily, I know where the emergency elevators are." he said, finally shoving the ceiling tile out of the way. Of course he left out the fact that this elevator was located in the single most dangerous place in the facility. _Cross that bridge when we get to it,_ he thought, grabbing onto the edges of the hole he'd made and hauling his top half up. He hung for a moment just above the bed, legs kicking as he attempted to pull himself through. "Chell? Could you...give me a boost?" he requested. After a moment of scuffling from below, he felt a push against his legs and managed to get onto the roof. "Well done!" he exclaimed, glancing down to his new partner. She gave him a thumbs up. "You're stronger than you look. Now..." he mumbled the last word to himself, turning to a console of sorts and fiddling with it.

"It's lucky, I had a friend who was working on these things. Developed them from scratch, so I know about the override up here. Good old Matt. He was a real nice fella, and bloody smart too. I remember at the office parties..." he trailed off and poked his head down through the hatch. Chell was clearly not paying attention, instead examining the interior of the chamber, testing the sturdiness of the walls and floors by pressing her weight against them. "Oi!" Wheatley called. Chell looked up. "You're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?" he asked, slightly offended. She shrugged guiltily in response, and he sighed dramatically before returning to his fiddling with the control box. "First human you've seen in centuries and you're more interested in the architecture..." he mumbled. Something bounced off his back, just hard enough to get his attention, and he looked into the room once again, picking up the mystery projectile. "Did you just throw a hairbrush at me?" he said, completely miffed. At first he looked upset, but when he saw her playful grin, he smiled as well, shaking his head and devoting his attention to the machinations.

After several moments of fiddling around, the chamber gave an abrupt jolt, and Wheatley clung to the roof with alarm. Chell was looking up at him questioningly. "Yeah, that was supposed to happen." he lied blatantly. She seemed to know. "Uh. Hold onto something, okay?" he said. She arched an eyebrow expectantly, gesturing to the spot beside her. "I have to stay up here. How else am I supposed to control the thing?" he said. At this Chell looked concerned. "I'll be fine, okay? Now brace yourself. This might get a little...uh, technical..." he said, clearing his throat.

What commenced was the most terrifying three minutes of his life. The first part of their trip down the rail was a whirlwind of collisions and a cacophony of crashes and the hair-raising sound of metal scraping on metal. The hellish experience soon settled once he brought the relaxation chamber to a halt in front of a wall. He leaned forward, adjusted his glasses and squinted at the text printed on the bricks, just barely able to make out the words 'Docking Station'. Wheatley blinked. It didn't look much like a docking station...oh well. It was all he had right now.

"All right, I think this is a docking station." he shouted, reeling the chamber back and bracing himself against a strut. Had he spared a glance down to the interior, he would have seen Chell vigorously shaking her head and trying vainly to indicate that the docking station was fifty feet down. The chamber slammed against the solid wall, cracking it significantly. Wheatley barely clung to the beam he was against, and below, Chell was flung against the dresser she'd dragged over as a barrier.

"Good news! That is _not _a docking station. Just hang on, not a problem, I'm gonna attempt a...manual override on this wall." he said, pulling back again and crashing against the wall. He peered down into the room once more. A very dazed Chell was shoving the mattress off, which had flipped and landed on top of her. "One more ought to do it. Seriously, do hold on this time." Wheatley said flatly. Chell scrambled to the small closet and shut herself in. Satisfied that she would be secure, he wrapped an arm around the strut and started the swing forward before quickly bringing his other arm around for support. The chamber smashed all the way through with so much force it flung Wheatley into the next room. He lay there flat on his back for a moment, dizzy and stunned, before Chell's concerned face appeared above him.

"Great! We're both okay!" he exclaimed happily. She smirked, holding out her hand to help him up. Gratefully he accepted her assistance, dusting himself off. It was then that he noticed he was wearing a jumpsuit, much like hers, only a dark blue color, and sleeves that came only down to the elbow. He wasn't sure if it was designed to fit that way, or because his arms were too long to fit in the proper sleeves. He checked the legs, and they seemed to come down to his ankles, so it must have been specially tailored. _So was I a test subject at one time? _Wheatley wondered before his eyes lifted to Chell once again.

He was surprised to find that she had been examining him in much the same way he'd been just a moment ago. Her eyes snapped up to meet his before averting to the side. "Okay! We're already well on our way out of here. It's very likely that we'll have to cut through the test chambers." he said, picking his way though the rubble. He caught a flinch from Chell and gave her a puzzled glance. "What's the matter? Is-" he cut off with a yelp as he took a misstep dropped straight through a layer of glass, landing hard on his back in a disheveled short-term relaxation vault. "I'm okay, I'm okay!" he assured Chell as she poked her head over the edge with a slightly panicked expression. He picked himself up and checked himself for wounds. Miraculously, none of the glass had cut him. He beckoned her down with a wave. Chell hopped nimbly down and landed with catlike grace.

There was the familiar _pwhoosh_ sound of a portal opening, and an orange-rimmed hole opened itself on the small square of white wall in the small chamber. Chell wasted no time in hopping through, Wheatley following by practically falling into it. "Our best bet," he said, glancing uneasily back at the blue portal as if he were just thankful he'd made it through whole and unharmed, "would be getting ahold of the dual portal device. It'll be the easiest method of navigating the facility." he explained, walking right alongside her through the overgrown halls. Wheatley suppressed a shiver. It was downright creepy, seeing this place which he was used to being so whitewashed and sterile, turned into a crumbling jungle. "How long has it been like this?" he asked Chell. She shrugged. "So when you were in testing—I mean, you _were_ in testing, weren't you?" She nodded. "When you were in testing, was it all...green like this?" he asked. A small shake of the head. "We've been out for a long time, then." he said with a sigh. Chell looked over at him and prodded him suddenly in the chest. Wheatley flinched back a bit, looking bemused. "What?" he asked defensively. She huffed and pointed repeatedly at him. "Me? Oh! Was _I _a test subject?" he suddenly realized. Chell nodded vigorously. "No, no. I worked here." he said. "I was part of the Artificial Intelligence department. I think. My memory is a little fuzzy." he admitted, scratching his ginger head. She nodded, then pointed up ahead to the next room they were about to enter. It was a small test chamber, with only a button and a cube. _Simple enough,_ Wheatley thought, moving to drop the cube into place, only to have Chell beat him to the punch, on instinct. "Oh! Nicely done." he remarked.

The next couple of rooms progressed in a similar way, Chell solving and Wheatley trailing along spouting off random praise and chit-chat, until they reached one space that was more wide open than the others. "Hmm...this place looks familiar...I think this is where the dual portal gun is. Let's just take a look around." he said, smiling down at his partner in crime. She gave a small smile and a nod, and Wheatley moved away to check around the walls. Not a moment later there was a tremendous sound from just behind him, and he whipped around just in time to see Chell disappear through a crumbling section of the floor. He gasped and rushed over, throwing himself onto his stomach at the edge of the hole. "Chell! Chell!" he shouted, staring into the inky blackness. He nearly threw himself down after her, but quickly thought better of it. After all, what good would it do either of them if, were she still alive but in need of her help, he got himself killed? As he drew back from the edge, his mind was racing. How far down could she have fallen? Long-Fall Boots aside, if she'd fallen all the way through the facility...it went _miles_ underground, and he wasn't sure _anyone _could survive that kind of fall.

"Can you hear me down there? Chell? Are you okay?" he called, biting his lower lip as he waited for some kind of answer. "Oh, right, you can't—argh!" he smacked himself in the forehead hard, his self-reprimand enough to make him briefly dizzy. "Look, I dunno if you can hear me, but if you can, try to find your way through, wherever you are. Okay?" he said, trying to push down the panic quickly rising in his chest. He pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. "I'll see you soon, all right? G-Go team!" he added with an attempt at cheer. After lingering for a moment he stood, checking for a way out. He finally found a bit of collapsed wall and spent the next several minutes clambering over debris and through wrecked test chambers, until he came to a dead end. He could go no further without a portal device, so he slunk down on a large slab of drywall and rested his head in his hands. His eyes flickered lightly shut, and he tried to keep his mind clear of thoughts of Chell. _She'll show up soon, _he assured himself, and forced himself to think of something, anything else...

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><p><em>Pop.<em> The sound of a champagne cork going off, followed by cheers. Wheatley couldn't bring himself to join the party in the next room. He sat just outside, slumped against a wall with his knees drawn halfway to his chest. The party was for him, at least partially, since he was a member of the AI team, but he didn't think he could handle facing up to any of his coworkers tonight. The past few months had been harder on Wheatley than anything in recent memory.

As always he put on his usual chipper face for his coworkers, but during the time he spent alone he was merely a dull reflection of his old self. It was just..._her. _That woman, robot, whatever the hell they'd made her into. It was all just so wrong, so terribly wrong and he never wanted this, he never dreamed he'd be involved in something so stomach-turning and-

"Hey, need some company?" a familiar voice asked, shattering his thoughts. Wheatley jumped a little and looked up to find Kirk's face hanging over his. He attempted to fix his features into a more pleasant expression but...couldn't find the energy. Somehow he managed to make his voice at least semi-cheerful.

"Oh! Hello, mate! Er, I was just-" he began, fumbling to stand, but a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Hiding?" Kirk suggested, sitting next to him and propping his back against the wall. Wheatley hesitated before nodding with a bit of shame. The two sat in silence for a while, an unusual occurrence for Wheatley. Finally Kirk held up his hand, and Wheatley saw for the first time that he held a bottle of whiskey, probably nicked from the party. He laughed, genuinely, for what felt like the first time in months, and accepted the bottle, taking a drink before handing it back to Kirk, who did the same before breaking the silence. "I'm worried about you." he said simply. Wheatley wasn't sure what to say to that.

"So am I." he finally responded, the most honest reply he could muster. Another stretch of silence hung between them. "I can't do it anymore, Kirk." Wheatley finally said.

"What do you mean?" he asked, his brow furrowing with sudden concern.

"I can't...I can't be a part of it anymore. GLaDOS, I mean. It's just...it started out feeling wrong to me, and it's just gotten worse and worse. That woman, Caroline, she didn't want any part in this, but...they forced her to...and now we've spent the last few months picking apart her personality and choosing what we want or don't want. Do you know what they're celebrating right now?" he asked, his voice filled with an unnatural bitterness. "They're celebrating the fact that Caroline—sorry, GlaDOS—no longer responds to the name 'Caroline.' They're celebrating the fact that we erased her existence." he said. Kirk merely stared, worried.

"Wheatley." he said. "You know you can't let anyone know how you feel about it. If you do, who knows what they'll do to you." he said, a sense of urgency in his words.

"I've tried, Kirk, I've really tried to-to just keep it all locked up, tried to smile my way through it but I just can't. I can't do that anymore. There's enough blood on my hands as it is." Wheatley snapped, and Kirk was shocked at the self-loathing in his voice.

"Wheatley, please, leave it alone. You know too much about the company, they could _kill_ you." he hissed.

"I can't do that." Wheatley replied simply. Kirk sat back, staring ahead.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I don't know. But I'm not going to keep quiet." Wheatley said, and for the first time Kirk could hear a tremble of fear in his voice...

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** There you go, lovelies! c: Ace is back and better than ever. This chapter is dedicated to my dear friend Beth.  
>Yes, Beth, <em>you.<em> All you readers can thank the dear girl for pushing me to continue my fanfictions. Followers of Wheatley's Second Chance, don't fret! It'll be updated posthaste!  
>Much love, as usual,<br>Ace


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